Tag Archives: business thinking

August 23, 2013 · 9:48 am

Perfect Pitch

We’ve come to the end of another week and so it’s Foodie Friday time.  Today, I’m going to make up for omitting the TunesDay post last Tuesday and combine music and food (and yes, they of course lead to business).  Perfect pitch is the ability of a person to listen to a piece of music and tell you (or play) in what key the piece is written without the benefit of hearing a reference tone – a known note to which they can compare it.  In other words, it’s much easier to know that something is written in A minor if you hear a Middle C before it plays.

Graphic details the nomenclature of the musica...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I think there is perfect pitch in the kitchen as well.  There are those cooks who can recreate a dish or break it down having tasted it once.  They also seem to know what the folks eating their food want on a plate.  They can “hear”  the palates of their customers perfectly.  Food is very much like music in that when a note is even slightly off it’s noticeable and off-putting.  Great cooks keep the flavors in harmony and in tune.

In both cases, having perfect pitch assures that the harmonies are tight.  The Beach Boys or Crosby, Stills, and Nash are perfect examples.  The harmonious mix of flavors in a well-executed braise is another.  The overtones – harmonics that surround the musical or culinary compositions – resonate perfectly.  Think about Jimi Hendrix’s brilliant use of feedback (overtones, kids) and you’ll get an idea of what I mean.  Done badly, it’s just awful.  Done right, it’s a classic.

As businesspeople, most of us aren’t born with perfect pitch.  I certainly wasn’t in any of the three roles – musician, cook, or executive.  What we can do is work on having perfect relative pitch.  Once we get some sort of reference tone we can take it from there with confidence.  We need to train our ears to find that tone and then proceed keeping it in mind.  In business, that tone comes from customers.  Once we have it, we should have already trained ourselves to listen to the harmonics and make sure they’re in tune as well.

Success in music, the kitchen, and the boardroom all come from listening with a trained ear.   If we have the gift of perfect pitch, it’s an invaluable asset.  If we don’t, we need to train ourselves to mimic perfect pitch behavior based on a solid starting point and never lose sight of that reference point.  Hard to do, I know, but the rewards are worth it.   Wouldn’t you agree?

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August 16, 2013 · 10:53 am

Supermarket Eyes

Foodie Friday (yay!) and I want to write about a topic inspired by my local supermarket.

The interior of a T & T store

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I know what you’re thinking – awfully boring for the readers looking for a cooking tip or at least another place to complain about my recipes.  Stay with me – it’s kind of an interesting story that related to food and to business.

I’ve been going to that same supermarket for at least a decade.  I know the store like the back of my hand.  Or at least I did until a week or so ago.  They’re doing some sort of work and “improving” the store layout.   You can bet corporate management is at work here – I’m sure there are a bunch studies on shopper movement and purchasing that are in play. Most of the shoppers seem to use a hand-held scanner which traces their movements while shopping in addition to allowing a quick getaway once shopping is over via self checkout.  That data might have something to do with the changes as well.

Why I bring this up is that I noticed something while shopping in the “new”  store.  Since I no longer knew what was in each aisle or where the things I needed were, I paid a ton of attention to every shelf.  In fact, I discovered a couple of interesting food items that had probably been there for a long time.  I’d never had occasion to be or look where they were so I missed them.

That’s the business point too.  Most of us go about our days as if we’re in that very familiar store.  We know where the things are that get us through our days  but because of that we’re a bit oblivious to other things all around us that might be useful.  We need to make a mental change and approach our business lives as if we’re in that reconfigured store.  That small change in perspective can result in a big change in results.

Happy hunting!

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August 9, 2013 · 10:15 am

Espagnole

Let’s get a little technical for our Foodie Friday fun this week. No, not technical in the technology sense. It’s our food day, after all. I’ve written before about the Mother Sauces (there will be a quiz!) and for some reason one of them – Espagnole – popped back into my head yesterday while I was out doing an errand. Kind of weird, I know, but stay with me.

The other four mother sauces are ones I suspect any of you who cook use on a fairly regular basis. It’s hard to cook Italian food without a tomato sauce being involved. Bechamel is the basis for so many things, from mac and cheese to Moussaka. Hollandaise is used as is (mmm…eggs Benedict…).  I’d argue that Veloute is more widely used as well even if people don’t know what it is.

Espagnole, which is a brown sauce generally reduced several times and is meat based, is sort of the quiet fifth wheel.  It’s not glamorous.  It’s not easy to make and is generally not used as a sauce by itself.  It’s the basis for other sauces (hence a mother sauce) and its deep flavor, brought on by hours of cooking, is part of what distinguishes a professional kitchen from what the rest of us do in the home.  It needs a lot of attention – frequent skimming of fat, for example – to get it right.  Once you have it, however, many other wonderful things are possible.  Which, of course, is how I got on the subject and the business point.

I was thinking about a friend who is having some trouble in his job.   He’s quietly efficient and the firm is much better off with him there.  The word that popped into my head was…well you can guess.  We all know people who are the Espagnoles (is that a word?) of our businesses.  They are there in the background and they’re easy to overlook.  Without them, a lot of other things are impossible, or least don’t turn out as well (try a mushroom sauce made with a great Espagnole – you’ll know!).  Just as Espagnole is given equal billing as a mother sauce, we need to recognize the contributions of the quiet ones or the ones in the less glamorous jobs.   It’s their Umami that gives our businesses depth even if we have to build on their solid foundation to form the ultimate product.

Do you know someone like that – an Espagnole?

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